I'm flying off to sunny Houston tomorrow morning. Miss Nancy and I are then trekking to Galveston Bay for three days of R&R on the beach.

I understand El Cap will be meeting us for dinner at some point in Galveston.

And I'm hoping to finally get to meet my girl PJ after a million years of enjoying each others' critter photos.

Then the long weekend will be taken up with a friend's wedding in Kingwood, TX and all the fun and games that go with it. I'm hearing Texas baseball and at least one honky tonk are in my future there...

Current conditions

70°F

Thunderstorm

RealFeel®:

67°F

Humidity:

88%

Winds:

S 16mph

Pressure:

29.79°Hg

Visibility:

8 mi.

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Do you have a BoA or Chase credit card? Then you may want to pay attention to this:

If you have a credit card account with Bank of America or Chase, two of the nation’s largest banks, a major security flaw has been exposed that could make your information vulnerable to an Internet crook – or even a nosy neighbor.

Consumer advocate Edgar Dworsky of ConsumerWorld.org, who discovered the flaw, says anyone who knows your phone number and has the last four digits of your Chase or BofA credit card number might be able access your account.

Here’s the flaw Dworsky uncovered: When you call a bank’s automated credit card account information system, the computer uses caller ID to compare the number you’re calling from with the one on the account (usually your home phone).

At BofA and Chase, if the phone number is a match, the verification process is streamlined. Rather than requiring the entire credit card number to be entered, the caller can usually access the account with only the last four digits. In some cases, a zip code is also required.

“The last four digits of your credit card number are just out there so predominantly,” Dworsky says. “If you look at any sales receipt, it always has those last four digits.”

In order for someone to take advantage of this security loophole, they’d have to trick the bank’s computer to make it appear the call is coming from your home phone. Internet “spoofing” sites make this incredibly easy to do. Con artists have been using this technology for years, and it is how those British tabloid reporters were able to hack into so many voicemail systems.

To follow the NPR (US National Public Radio) meme, copy this list, putting in Bold those you have read.

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card (I read the whole series and the Bean series.)
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin (Three times, except for the most recent book, which just came out last month. Give me time...)
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman (One of my favorite books ever, which I've read four times.)
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan (Up to book 10. When I realized that really nothing had happened over the course of 10 books, I threw up my hands and cried "uncle".)
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
22. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey (I read everything in the Pern series published before 1995. Then I got a life.)
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke (Completely over-hyped. Does anybody want my hardbound version?)
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

Actually, that's more sci-fi/fantasy that I would have thought. And it's missing some others I enjoyed but which didn't make this list -- Gayle Greeno's Ghatti series, Mercedes Lackey's, Valdemar and Elemental Masters series, Rick Cook's Wiz series (hilarious), John Ringo's Council Wars series (yes, I should read more Ringo), anything by Michael Chabon... and that's just getting me started.

A couple of months ago I rushed through a mall and grabbed two packages of underpants in what I thought was the correct size off a sale table in a store that I visit once or twice a decade, and put the brand new packages in my undies draw for just such an emergency.

A few weeks later I was running low and had no time to do laundry, so I hauled out and opened a new package of panties. When I unfolded them, I immediately realized I had made a mistake and bought one size too large.

Unlike Bridget Jones' gigantic granny pants, which were made of spandex, the ones I'd bought were made of cotton -- cheap cotton with elastic at the waist and leg bands.

The giant pants, like the pantyhose, fit just fine (okay, a little loose -- but not so bad) just out of the package. But as the day went on they started expanding in all directions, except for the waistband and leg bands.

The waistband ended up scooching northwards, missing my bra band by a mere inch.

The butt boofed out like a gangsta's boxers.

The sides expanded until it looked like the plastic pants my mother used to cover my cloth diapers as a baby.

And I had no time to do laundry or go shopping for at least three more days.

Yes, I should have thrown them out. I've laundered, then binned them at least three times but my penurious Yankee conscience just won't let me let go of them.

And I'll probably end up wearing them again, too.
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The Chicago Air & Water Show starts tomorrow, but we've had fighter jets buzzing the city for a couple of days now in practice. Ear worm of the day?

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Yes, this is extra naughty. Yes, it made me laugh and laugh and laugh some more.
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“My good friends Rachael, Guy and Sandra are the most generous charitable folks I know. They give so much of their time and money to help the food-deprived, sick children and abandoned animals. I have no idea what Anthony has done to contribute besides being irritable.”

Last night's lulu had to do with me wanting to go trekking around to do some photography. I didn't want to take my new tripod, because it's too heavy to be toting up hill and down dale. For some reason every time I stuffed it back in it's carry case, another friend or family member would unzip the bag, take out the tripod and set it up again. This happened over and over and over again.

Check out Reacher's stats, per the novelist himself, here. If you can, with a straight face, 'splain me how they can turn the Poison Dwarf into that towering giant of a man, I'll buy your cocktails for a month.

I like Perry's announcement speech because he ignored all the other GOP candidates and acted as though he's only running against one opponent -- the one that's currently in the White House. If he keeps that up, he'll really have my respect.

Update: Yep. Perry's entry into the race is alarming the Obama Dems. Any guy who has the far lefties up in arms is the right guy for me.
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What's at the root of the UK riots? Maybe parental attitudes like this:

Two-thirds of those who have come before magistrates have been remanded in custody and a large number have been sent to Crown Courts, which have powers to hand down prison sentences of longer than six months.

Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly said: 'Yesterday and today I met court staff and judges who had worked 30 hours straight.

'We will continue to provide all necessary support to the police to ensure anyone involved in this kind of criminal activity is brought to justice as swiftly as possible.'

A Ministry of Justice spokesman added: 'We have enough prison places for those that are sentenced to custody after these incidents. There is substantial capacity in the prison and youth justice system.'

In addition, the papers are shaming by naming names. LOTS of names. Well done.

This demonspawn is obviously the love child of Joan Crawford at her frothing finest and the Honey Badger. She’s the only 4 year old I’ve seen that has the voice of a chain-smoking dock worker. She is the dark underbelly of what happens when breeding is left to amateurs. If we airdropped Makenzie’s rhinestoned ass into Afghanistan, the war would be over the next day. If we sent Makenzie to live one day with each teenage girl in America, the teen pregnancy rate would drop to zero. If we wait long enough, most likely the pits of Hell will open up and reclaim her.

If you are a LinkedIn user, you may want to act on this quickly. In classic social network style, LinkedIn has borrowed from Facebook’s playbook on abusing your privacy. They’ve made agreements with advertisers and defaulted your LinkedIn account’s privacy settings. Unless you change the default setting, advertisers have permission to use your LinkedIn name, photo and posts in their ads. In effect, this makes you an implied endorser of a company, product or service without your explicit consent.

To change your settings, do the following:

Go to LinkedIn and sign into your account. In the upper right and side of the window you’ll see a small hyperlink for your name.

Click on your name and click Settings from the drop down menu.

Go to the bottom left of the window and click on Account (icon is a small grey shield)
Just left of that, a list will appear for PRIVACY CONTROLS. Under that, click Manage Social Advertising and remove the check from the box.

You may also want to click Turn On/Off Enhanced Advertising and remove the check from that box too…depends on your feeling about ads you receive.

When’s the last time you heard of anything more snake-oily than ‘enhanced advertising’?

I promoted an Etsy shop last week because I really love their gorgeous, girly jewelry... and I come home to find these (or the next closest thing) in my mailbox with a lovely thank-you note:

Girly, pretty, totally romantic! I'm going to have to go shopping because I want something soft and feminine in heather grey and another something in burgundy lace to wear with these gorgeous ear bobs.

To the wonderful folks at A Pocket Full of Posies -- thanks for the totally unexpected and greatly appreciated birthday gift!

(To my gentlemen readers -- A gift from APFOP will make your own lady feel totally appreciated. Bookmark and use them for Christmas, birthday, Valentine's Day or "just because" gifting. Your lady will be impressed with your good taste and flattered that you see her as feminine enough to rock this gorgeous stuff.)

Again, many thanks!
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UPDATE: It wasn't a gift from APFOP after all. Even better, it was from my beautiful daughter. I wore them right away, and felt absolutely beautiful in them! (But it does pay to post your wish list!)

After reading Beyond Silk and Cyanide several years, I've always had tremendous respect for the spies, British and American, who risked their lives under incredibly difficult circumstances. Very, very few made it home again.